Even in a photograph against a Himalayan sunrise,Your glow captured, then eclipsed completely their beauty,And a whole mountain range watched equally in awe of you,As I was,And I am, And I ache.

You are like nothing ever seen,Across mountains and forests,Deserts and jungles,From city to city,Yours floats above a sea of lesser faces.

You are sunlight burning fires that consume sound out of the air,A silent picture postcard sent from angels’ holidays,Taken somewhere away beyond even heaven,Far away, a portrait painted of the sheer, and absolute.The end of all pictures, perfected,You are the final concept,The sight of you, a last wish by the world before it dies.

I have seen you,And thought of my arms,My hands that could hold….

(…)

…instead I am withheld,And it pains me,Ache,For not holding you,Pain,That started there in my eyes,Sinuses,Spread down to shoulders,Heart,Sunken and then drowned,Slump,As my breath comes hard.

For you I salt my own wounds,Writing what I can’t describe,I can offer up only these burn marks-Even as this bittersweet searing,Is still fresh,I know you’re already becoming an old-wound.

I know you don’t want me,Medusas opposite,You look at me and I am stone turned tissue paper,Like a statue becoming its own shadow on the ground,Struggling for some shape in the dying light.

But you are brilliant,Retinas burn from over-exposure to you,You glow like a ghost on the back of my eyelids,Some amazing grace,I have seen,

Saturday, June 27, 2009

I already tacked this onto the end of today's blog, but I liked it so much I didn't want to take the chance of anyone missing the opportunity to read an actual poet, Eleanor Jackson's response to "breasts":

George Lucas tried to fight the Vietnam War with Ewoks,
Uni students used sayings and slogans,
Figured they could fight a war,
Against the war if they wore badges,
Placards with platitudes like,
No blood for oil, only bush I trust,
Only I don't know what that's supposed to mean,
Because I sure-as-fuck,
Don’t trust the other type of Bush much either.

Don't get me wrong I'm on your side in the sidelines,
It's just that I like to play hard to get with my allegiances,
Yet am real slutty and sleep around with my cynicisms,
I’m an equal opportunist.

Because if justice is blind,
Then injustice is looking right at you,
And down your open collar,
Leering at the goods in jovial jocular vernacular.

I’ll redistribute the world's mirth,
While westerners' waistlines increase in girth,
All that waist and the belt buckle breaks,
And I could use a break in the chains of poverty,
Turn them into fashion accessories,
Goes well with your hir shirt,
Break the cycle of carrying your crosses
And getting cross with your parents.

These are,
Issues of impoverished metaphors that I over-produce,
Flooding world markets with over-priced unnecessary poetry and verse,
That I never make enough time to (uh what was it)… rehearse,
Inbuilt redundancy that I've built into this redundant sentence,
Slavishly labouring away below the propriety line,
Third world, third class, third bass,
Fourth time lucky.

Advertisers,
Got me fooled into thinking,
Thinking they're hip and that I can be,
But my black jeans aren't tight enough,
Wait a minute I haven't got any,
Patience,
Is a virtue like other virtues I can't remember,
Remember there were about seven of them though,
Kinda like the deadly sins,
I got a handle on the deadly sins,
And is it just a coincidence that there are 7 of each?
Maybe they should get together and duke it out,
The winner takes all and you can take it from me.

Battle of the sins and virtues, that’s a true spectator sport,
And you can leave us out of it,
They could have a showdown down at the battleground.
Like at the end of that movie the wanderers only less…
Only less,
Less like it's a relatively obscure early 80s cult film classic,
Directed Phil Kaufman.

But I don’t got time to explain about that now,
We’re out of its stock,
And I’m on the clock,
On the dial, on the edge,
On the phone, on the mend,
On a bender, on a quest,
On a soap box,
On a roll,
On facebook under a fake name,
Underneath the radar and beneath your contempt,
Beneath my dignity? … Hehe
Well now that's getting pretty fuckin' low,
Especially by today’s standards.

Because these days,
Kids can even get bullied over the internet,
Threatening emails and cyber space,
So it all starts to seem as appealing as Siberia.
Like there ain't nothin’ out there but a vast electronic wasteland,
Fields of frozen forest,
Frost bitten bitches bitchin' about emo,
Emo? Ain’t your thing bro?

Well to tell you the truth,
I think you’re just mad about your lost youth,
You criticise the kids now as if you were never young,
Determined to prove you too were different,
No? Like you never wore strange clothes,
Or felt like dying, maybe I'm lying,
Or assuming too much,
I'm not, after all basing this on any evidence,
Only this feeling in the air…
Or maybe it’s a smell…
Smells like teens drinking spirits.

Maybe that's just me and my liquid breakfast,
90 proof and I got nothing to prove,
Except that I can get drunk,
Drunker than you, much drunker that you!
So I can start yelling a Marlowe line or two at you,
At midnight mid city before doing a round of one-arm push ups,
I’m pushing 30,
Better grow up sober up?
Shut the fuck up!
Sobriety is a fine thing in moderation.
But overrated and its effects wear off quickly.

I’m a godamn poet don’tchya know it,
And I'm fielding questions like
"Haven't you got anything better to do?"
Scratch my head for scratching my balls,
And turn back to the computer screen,
Looking for the answers to come careening out of a keyboard,
With the clocks pendulum,
Threatening to dismember me at every stroke.

Death wears a smile,
Time wears down my defences
And my jokes wear themselves thin.
I might be becoming unbearable,
But I’m still smarter than your average bear,
If just barely.

Stayed back late at work and mucked around photocopying my soul,
Got caught by the cleaners who took me to the cleaners
To keep my dirty little secret,
Although I secretly desire to tell everyone my dirty little secrets,
Which I guess is why I write and perform this stuff.

I want to find catharsis,
Meaning, pathos, mojo,
New depths of self expression and poignancy,
I really want to get laid.
But this payoff has been much delayed.

Ain’t kidding,
Ain’t funny,
You think I’m in this for the money
Or the fame,
Well think again stranger,
It’s all just a set of stages,
And I’m gonna take ‘em one at a time.

I'm so afraid of what's next,
Afraid of what I might say,
And what's left unsaid,
Where the Devil himself fears to tread,
Angels are on my shoulder whispering dirty limericks,
That I don't have the balls to recite here.

So excuse me,
For making excuses.
But if you'll excuse me,
I’ll be off,
To get my rocks off,
I'm late,
And I'm not even dressed the part,
All I got is what I'm wearing,

You see,
I've traded my dignity with the emperor for some new clothes,
And I don’t know much about fashion,
So can you take a look and tell me…

What do you think?

___________________________________________________

The title kind of bothers me at this point. I originally wrote this March 2008, in one hit, and performed it less than 45 minutes after finishing it. But, by now the damn thing's been edited far too many times to any longer pretend it is "stream of consciousness" ~ then again, the substance and structure have not changed at all (cut out a few awkward lines and replaced 'em with a few bridges), and I've never been able to extract a better title from between my ears. So it stands.

Speaking of my idiocy ~and my inability to overcome it, check out a response to the now infamous "breasts" poem. I ain't gonna reach for that Oscar Wilde quote about the kinds of attention you get, but hey...

Thursday, June 18, 2009

Outside is turning into,Its own disposed pre-packaging,Something I can wrap in a witticism,Then whack-up online.

I live on hold,A pulse tone pressed one,The basement ring tone,Music repeats,Waiting for an answer.

Pixilated and blurrier in full screen,Watch my life again for the best bits,Forgetting about my future,Going to be so so big,But now hiding somewhere in between comments,Inside selection criteria to key into,And buttons for refreshing one's-self.

This is not me,You’re looking at a bunch of words,That I've pressed into one of my many,Necessary, electronic devices,Don’t look to find me here,Nor yourself,Nor anything else.

This is at best a map,Set of vague instructions,We cannot live –here-Tonight my nights are numbered,And re-numbered,Overhead in a holding-pattern,I cannot make it continue much longer,I can fly,But did not come to this capability,Merely to circle the one spot.

Airborne, but we are heavy,Acidic, sentiment, nucleic,Chains, spiral, metabolizing,Dividing into cells,I can evaporate into digital mitosis,Again and again,Seen only in megapixels,Followed only by my shadow,Understood only in dimensions,

82 kilograms,170 Centimetres,29 years,

And 1 life,Eaten away in attempts to describe itself,And prescribe itself a cure.

A turn off,One day I will turn this off,And take that walk away,As far as it can go.

Said my piece for tonight,I hope this is read,I hope that means,Some-thing.

More will follow, of course,But none of it as ironic,As this simple fact,When at last that I feel like saying no more,And that walk-away-day dawns,I will have reached the point…

If you ever wondered why in this blog there's always full stops like this:...In a lot of my posts, it's because I, for the dear life of me, can't get this damned thing to simply put a space in when I press -enter-I dunno, something to do with it being cut and pasted from a word.doc, but then the same thing happens when I run it through a .txt file first too ~ and as a bonus lose all my formatting in the process, yay!

I have a headache. I mean they're just little......dots I know, but I do really try use space and commas to effect here, its all intentional, and then, suddenly, I got.......and I think this computer is telling me it wants to learn to fly, and I'm gonna drop kick it out the nearest window... sigh.

So I've been wrestling with this hijo de la gran phuta-computer for an hour, trying to get my re-re-edit of Whore Eyes up, correctly formatted and gave up. Nothing sadder than a man who can't be the master his own punctuation.

Bad night, fuck it.......it's turtles shells all the way down, until you hit the last of the full stops.....(ouch)

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

If you are easily offended or have a problem with foul language,Then don’t come to my show.If you think poetry remains the purview of crusty self-important intellectuals and school teachers,Or if you always got along with your parents when you were growing up then,Don’t come to my show …and you’re creepy.If you think political correctness equates to a legitimate interest in social justice,then you disgust me so,Don’t come to my show!Wether gay, straight, bi-sexual, male or female ~ if you don’t think breasts are awesome,Then don’t come to my show, (because if not entirely dysfunctional you at least have unforgivably poor taste)If you are some sort of Astronaut, or has a job relating to space travel …hey, that’s really cool!If you don’t want to be cheered up,You-clammy-handed-snivelling-tight-black-jeans-wearing-hipster-why-don’t-you-and-your-lame-friends-go-outside-and-get-some-exercise-and-a-little-vitamin-D-once-in-a-while-and-no-just-pedalling-five-minutes-down-Swanston-street-on-your-fixy-to-get-to-uni-does-not-count-for-fucks-sake, then stay home and listen to your velvet underground or whatever it is the God-Hell-Shit it is you dorks listen to,and do not come to my show.So,If your prefer a limp-wrist to a ham-fist,Then (sigh) don’t come to, like…this totally lame show, pfft.

However ~If you can remember what Ewoks are… come to my show!If we can agree that men are brain dead knuckle draggers, but you’ve come to terms with that. Then come to my show, too.If you hate so-called reality television, then turn that fucking thing OFF,And come on down to my show!If you still have no solid idea on what life is about,And you’re aware that we’re really running out of time to work it all out before it’s too late,Then come to my show and we’ll compare notes, tell you what I got so far.If you like my new stuff better than my old stuff,Come to my show,If you don’t mind the odd list poem filled with a lot of negations and a subliminal disposition,Then (come to my show).And if you love poetry, then by all means, come to my show.

But,If you HATE POETRY,Or you’re unaware of it,Or think its dreary,boring, tired, irrelevant and way up its own arse,Then…You are wonderful and precious to me and definitely, please,COME TO MY SHOW!

And if you forgotten the details:8pm this coming Monday the 22nd June,at the Brunswick Hotel, 120 Sydney road (corner Wesson street),Brunswick.

Monday, June 15, 2009

“I’ve seen you, beauty, and you belong to me now,whoever you are waiting for, and if I ever see you again,
I thought.You belong to me now and all of Paris belongs to meand I belong to this notebook and this pencil."

-Ernest Hemingway, A Moveable Feast

***

Meet me below Napoleon's star
as it fell.

Meet me
beyond absinthe becoming poisonous
beyond the silences
shattered by emergency sirens
as they sound across the Seine.

Past all these places
this is where you'll find me
where I'm waiting for you
past all these places
in Paris.

Meet me
past the places
where the fires in my eyes
have been stomped out or blanket-smothered
eyes that have seen enough
to scream out your name.

Where nights were over
before they began
where doors were locked
languages butchered in brazen attempts
where the frayed ends of sentences
I left off unfinished...

bit back.

Past all these places
one more meeting space
one place
where second chances really do exist
and there is still the perfect time
still waiting ahead
I’m still waiting
to tell you
how I feel about,

You.

Now meet me at times
when I didn't tell you why-
I wanted you to meet me here,

Meet me there.

Meet me
where me where my intentions
match my resolve
and the air I breathe
and the sky
are the same thing.

Just once
just
one
time
where
this dancing around my feelings
really could be
a dance.

Not this desperate flight from fears
my fears
that this vulnerability
will lead to rejection
the way marijuana
leads to heroine
be my heroin.

Find me
meet me
meet me half way
give me
a key for the front door
and leave me with a light on
inside.

Find me here
outside those others territorial demarcations
respective previous
That we both needed
to
get
away
from.

Find me here
where I am declaring
and international law means
I get to keep this
courage
through
customs.

Where my words are less confused
confiding
instead of this hiding,
my feeling felt,

For you.

Meet me
-there-
meet me,

In Paris.

____________________________________________

Not really a 'redux' like some other recent entries, but I've made some minor corrections here while migrating it over from the previous my space blog, so now it reads exactly the way it is performed. Definitely one of my flag-ship pieces, I'm glad to finally give it a home here.

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Heavy Metal,That shines like jewelery,Purrs like a kitten,Grumbles like an elephant,Rides like a dream,Cost me like, a fair whack of my pay.

Doesn't play nice with other vehicles,Can smell a car door opening a mile away,Rides up gutters like they aren't there.They don't exist!

Neither does fatigue, or dark, or up-hills,Downhill’s exist though,She squeals with glee whenever we see one.

She never gets tired, but makes me that way.Demands respect, but seldom returns it.Powered by sweat, by doesn't recognise it herself.

Laughs at the wind and she keeps taunting it at my expense,Scolds me any time I try and slow down,She doesn't care about her rider,

Just uses me to get herself from A to B,I can take my hands away from the handlebars……and she'll just keep sailing along all the same,But then,Throw me a sudden shake,To rattle me, just a little.

Sulks,Whenever I leave her along for too long,She’s been feeling the winter neglect,Holding a grudge,Demands to know why we aren't conquering the world,…right now!

As hard as I breathe standing on the peddles,She just keeps humming along,Eating up all the ground I can give,Knowing it all belongs behind her.

There's no end to her greed,The insatiability of simple mechanics,She runs off no battery, needs no petrol,She has no caloric intake to exhaust,Isn't affected by dehydration, cold, or heat.

The air,Could become unbreathable,Oceans could die,All the world's oil disappear,She wouldn't care,No problem,She can’t be stopped -all she needs is the ground.

She's a mean old horse,With a vicious temperament,stubborn and unforgiving,

I love Her!

But, don't tell her I said any of this,

…She'll hurt me.

_____________________________

My first ever poem, back with it's own score to settle. Funny enough of all the work I'm re-interfering with, this one has barely had two lines rearranged.

So a lot of blogging in recent days, and more to come, call it your program list for the 22nd. Call that a plug. Call you an idiot if you don't show. Call me Randall, some years ago never mind how long precisely finding little or no money in purse...

Tuesday, June 9, 2009

.Breasts.Breasts... are the best.Oh yes,I'm talking about…Breasts,The time has come now to confess,How continually impressed,I am with their shape, their firmness,There's really no contest,For where my eyes get...

Stuck.

...it's just my luck,To then get busted,Staring at her bust,Then losing her trust,Suspecting that I only think about what juts,Out from, her chest,Namely, her…

Breasts,Believe me,I have tried my best,Not to be some vile letch,But I'm powerless,In resisting the temptations,In a given situation,When an opportunity does occur,Of being able to ogle over there at her…

Breasts,So it is for these that I continue to quest,Though it oft-times seems utterly hopeless,As most women usually think I'm a pest,To say nothing about joining me to get undressed,Where,I could get a closer look at,Yeah,her…

Breasts.On the crest of a conquest,I want the bequest,To please be her guest to make... a mess,All over the top of those…

Breasts,I do not jest,It pain me to confess,Yes,Their very shapes have been enmeshed,Upon my consciousness,My imagination gives me no rest,Threatening my equilibrium and wellness,On exposure to them my intellectual power plumm-ets,Into an infinite regress.

Breasts,Now I have the onus of saying to their owners,No disrespect in my intent,But, my fellow human beings,It is so, so hard to ignore what I’ve seen.

I mean,I really could just spend whole days gazing,In open-mouth stunned amazement,At those magnificent works of art,

That are so close, to both our hearts.

_____________________________________

Being something of a fan favorite from last year, and with my feature coming up, I decided to give 'breasts' a little more attention, that these words were well due for . Now they're more well rounded, better shaped and more supple, twice as good, exposing a subject I really wanted to touch on again.

And my story is,Laundry,Here with day’s worth of my own dirt,It all strobed into my eyes,While trying to blink out the grime,Flakes of skin,Stray hairs,Band aids that don’t stick.

This is all for your benefit.

It has a start, middle,And definitely an end I’m trying to reach,But this won’t mean anything,None of it will,Unless I break through these words,And start saying something.

So our story is…Suspects,Seeing as I had sand in my ears,A tongue that can twist all sorts of ways,And seeing as you could smell everything on me,From my first thoughts on down,Through every cent spent,Trying to get the map back here,To some point.

I have something to show,You.

It is one time, but not upon it,In only one place, which is every place,It has double-meanings, but it won’t be ambiguous,It’s all begins there in the firm soft glide,Of your finger across my palm,In the guarded face that is put on this,Over the top,For safety’s own sake,Assumed innocence,Allowances once made that aren't adult enough,Like we're too old now,To listen to another bed-time story.

Like happily ever after winking its post modern,Blurred-focus-high-contrast-all-knowing-mumble of ‘as if’,While you nod along quiet,Sporting your own grin,Prepared earlier,While inside you nothing can lie or be lied to,And it’s really kinda dying right now as another disappointment,Spilled its way into your story.

As for me,I love stories of all and any kind,Even though I’m tired of telling mine,I’d just like to be able to say it one last time,Make that it then I could put it to rest,But I know now that this will never happen,So I’ll keep telling it in parts,Until… the end.

I know how you like happy endings,And less the up-down ironic conclusions,But that is where my story started,And where it always goes,It’s why I’m still here,And will stick around to make sure you don’t miss it.

So this story won’t ever have a happy ending,But you’re old enough now to realise,

Thursday, June 4, 2009

How far can your eye expand to capture that night sky?And how many times can you reheat that same cup of coffee?How many broadcasts more of much-less,Accomplished-missions can you stand?How much must that landing-deck of yours shake,Before the procrastination forces our nests from under us,When will now,Finally be seen as the exclusion of later?

Those night sky lights are the search party,When will the wildfires find you?–not wanton,But with them,In thermodynamic tensions continually expanding,From here in all positions in all directions,Further away from what already exists.

When do we reunite these new feelings with our oldest needs?With ideas and with the drives?When will we make necks sore,Those trying to hold up heads watching us fly,Through spaces,Without mirrors or cameras or eyes or high minds.

Watching on as the pavement,Became the parchment,And the black trench coat called off the carpet ride,Magic must have ran away from our minds,Slipping out like someone's forgotten name,Mentioned too early in conversation to be retained,The talking is too involved now,And I’m embarrassed to ask for it again.

But magic, surely must have more names,Than we could ever ask it for,Together we must move like expanding gases,Us too contained –we must crumple our own canisters,That curtails your cause with causality,We are still explosive inside this cylinder,Still so impossible in our vast potential,Swirling under our pressure.

Don’t keep waiting for some spark,Crack or leak and find yourself merely leaking,Into just another room,Explode into a deeper space,And far outside yourself,A much bigger bang awaits.

You’re that universe waiting to happen,With its own time and space to begin so far out there,That their telescopes won’t reach you,You’ll bring your own properties into existance,Evidenced and observable to most folks,Only as background radiation hiss when radios turn on.

On through silent voids for so long,Yes, I still need you to sing,Of that distance through the distance,Expand worlds for yourself,If only so you can have some place to stand on,While you look up at the same night-lights that I am.

No matter the vaccum between our points of light,Or likeness,I need to hear what you have to say,You have to go,On,Forever.

Even with science still to decide,Whether or not you will yet implode,In a big crunch under force from your own gravity,You must swing back,You have to take your shot.

Let your gravitas be that gravity,Let me see you take a stance from where you’re standing,Without worrying,Because it will always be the same place,At the centre of the world,Watched over by the amazed eye,

.Hiding from what else they think they can sell me,Down here hoping that you won't be able to smell me,Sense they finally lost the scent,Repent,Hunters steam gathering,And they still prey, For my soul.

Product placement placed there as a front door,Some sorta border skirmish in a cold cold war,Losing side retreats into not,A no-not too late now,Lost the bulge,That European fortress that had no roof,No roof repeat not,Repeat,Not going out like that,Repeat,Not like that,Repeat that not, And not now,So stay home for a change,And hide from the battle.History lessons… tonight,Down here's my home,Home, home on the strange,Ranging from deranged back to strained politeness,Polite tensions suspend us,Hanging out,Down and out and not coming back up for air,For a while,As I made myself at home at large at last at will.Ad nausea.Then leave to simmer.

Down here, Hiding my rear in a rear projection, Through rear speakers, Last seen on flat screens,Said it,Fear screening,Fair hearing,Freedom screaming,Chained itself to trees to branch out,Endless.

Report this,Voyuerist,Back to your baser instincts,Every single second of it will be captured, recorded and commented on.Blogs… updates… and feeds,Oh yes feeds feeds,Feed me,Leading me on teething singing, saying,Say,You're going to see it,You’re going to love it,You’re going to write it all over my face,You will win this war of the mundane whoring my commonalities,For download time and cheap talk,I have nothing to offer you,Except-that I have nothing to offer you.

Whatever frauds and pretenders came before me,Can now be vanquished from the temple...I got the show about nothing,I'll give it to you for nothing.Don't mention it.

Sold, sold, sold,The price was right,You bought into all this stuff,You have shelves and shelves and boxes,And boxes,You have storage,You’re a valuable member of this community,Your contribution is valid,Your thoughts hopeful,Precious,Snowflake, sure sure,Validated, like a parking ticket,As you wait looking outta a car window for a boom to rise.

Tongue in cheek?Not at all,My tongue was too busy wagging and drooling all over the keyboard,Lap it up like look at me,Look at me can’t you see,Won’t you see some body,Status updated.

Under and out,And over we tried,To twists like your story has enough space now for you to tell it,In each bend pretzelling salt on all your wounds,Its re-designer label looked up latest lecherous,As one of its many advertised functions,It is all that glittered getting,What I knows,No way is the new black,Hot pink, my heat sink,Leers at me with its latest thing,The iPhone eBook oGod uSuck.

But I’m still in hiding,Still not back, to front,Still smirk even as I smell,My own incarnation of a last-and-dying-wish,Fading fast to black but I make out the scribble on my wrist,Ink lines leading back along my arms from a clenched fist,Words that I can still read, in this light, and they say this:

"From your first outward doubts, through to the day you're dying,You will never sell out, ...as long as no one’s interested in buying."______________________________________________